Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Iraq parliament to meet | Reuters.com

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three months after it was elected, Iraq's parliament will finally sit on Thursday but the session will be largely devoid of practical meaning as talks on forming a national unity government are still deadlocked.

'Nothing will happen today. There'll be no breakthrough, nothing. It is just something we have to get off our backs,' one senior parliamentarian told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

'We will meet in parliament and then will go and sit at the negotiating table (about forming the coalition government) and yell at each other,' said the parliamentarian, noting the first sitting was largely dictated by a constitutional deadline.

The opening of the first full-term parliament since the U.S.-led invasion three years ago should be the culmination of a U.S.-sponsored political process that began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds cannot agree on a coalition that Washington sees as a way to avert civil war."